Entry 150: Maybe You're Not Crazy, But Are You Wearing Pants?

I like to sit out on my balcony, survey my kingdom, and read the shit out of some books.  Since I'm in law school though, I also like to do my school reading out there too.  But it's pretty boring and takes forever.  At first I stay interested and get involved with what I'm reading.

Eventually though I start to lose my mind.  I don't know when it happens, or exactly why, but pretty soon I become convinced that I'm starring in a horror movie and that somebody is sneaking up behind me with a knife.  I'm watching myself on TV shouting "turn around Caleb! He's going to shank you!"  So I keep turning around to look, but nary a knife do I see.

Convinced I'm going crazy, I usually go distract myself by... well, anything.  Because "anything" is pretty much what qualifies as "more fun than reading for law school."  And yes, that includes kicks to the junk.

But maybe I'm still crazy.  How else could you explain this?

What!  I KNEW there was a ninja trying to knife me!  Real subtle, ninja.  Real subtle.

But maybe I was imagining that.  Hard to tell.  But... cats don't ordinarily love cigarettes, right?  I mean- am I crazy or is my roommate's cat going crazy for cigarettes?  Nope.  I'm hallucinating.  Definitely crazy.

Hmm.  I'm probably not crazy, but how can you tell?  Well I suppose one way is that your own cat is begging to be shipped away from you because she fears for her own safety.  I thought cats stuck with you till the bitter end?  They're not supposed to bail on you just because you might be a little crazy!

When I reminded her that there wasn't any room for food in the box, she backed out. 

Hmm.  I may or may not be hallucinating, but surely I'm not acting  crazy or anything.  It's totes normal to roll your cigarettes in your sleeve and shave down to a mustache, right?

"Is that a mustache or a shadow?" asks Aubree.  Thanks.  As if it's not already
 embarrassing that I'm almost 29 and can't grow a beard.  

Okay.  A little weird.  I'll go back to reading, but some fun, nerdy sci-fi stuff instead of law school.  Like this- what the hell!  No way.  No way somebody would make this a title of a chapter.  I'm going crazy.

Fine.  FINE.  There is only one sure-fire way to tell you're not crazy.  Wearing pants.  Crazy people do. not. wear. pants.  Hence, as long as I have pants on, I can't be crazy.  But do I?  I realize that I no longer know what "pants" means, nor do I understand the concept of "wearing."  So not wanting to go to school each day as a crazy pants-less guy, I have to get confirmation from my roommate that I am, indeed, wearing pants.

So far I've always managed to wear pants to school.  BUT, one day I spent 5 minutes confirming that I had pants on, but left the house in my slippers instead of my shoes.  And everybody knows that forgetting shoes is just one crazy step from forgetting pants.  There will come a day, friends, where I will NOT be wearing pants.  If you see me that day, please take me into custody, shave my stupid face, and make sure I get pants on right away.  Kthanks.

Pants-Caleb out.

No.  I'm totally not going crazy.  

(number of times I checked for pants wearing while writing this: 7)

BONUS!

I found this picture and it's funny.

DOUBLE BONUS!

You Allie fans might appreciate this one:

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Entry 149: Let Me Put My Law In You

Legal education is expensive. Especially when you actually go to school for it. So let me save you some money and learn you some legal stuff, free of charge. Here are 10 lessons from actual cases* that you can use in your daily life. For convenience, I've put these in a format that's easy to remember.

*facts may be distorted at my convenience


Lesson #1

Lesson #2

Lesson #3

Lesson #4

Lesson #5

Lesson #6

Lesson #7

Lesson #8

Lesson #9

Lesson #10

I hope this helps.  I would cite the cases for you and give you some more specific information, but my laziness prevents me from doing so.  Just have to take my word for it, I guess!

Also, sorrs about the posting delay.  I had 2 "almost" posts that, if they had worked out, would have kept me on schedule.  Internet: 2, Caleb: 0.

And, since it's been a while, here are a few updates, bullet-style.

- I gave my first impromptu stand-up performance for an audience consisting of drunk guys and gals in costume waiting in line to use a single restroom.  I explained that there was likely to be some errant pee in the vicinity of the toilet, as well as the inherent un-aimability of the male wiener.  Seriously- I think you women vastly over-estimate our level of control over these things.

- A new friend gave me my new favorite quote.  After intensely scanning a crowded room full of law students, he turned to me and said: "there is LITERALLY nobody in this room I wouldn't do."

- My team, the Cubs, signed an awesome general manager and president of baseball operations.  My hated enemy, the Cardinals, won the world series.  Yes, I still live in St. Louis, and no, I haven't been killed or put in jail yet.

- It's totally normal sometimes to wonder, "Am I really an alien?  Is this life or a Stephen King novel?" Right?  Right? I was a bit worried for a while that I'd lost what sanity I had left.

- Dad is doing well in Afghanistan, and says he has a lot of great stories.  He hasn't written any or delivered anything to me to post for The BS Update.  He did, however, almost die with his girlfriend and two small children while attempting to paddleboat through some rapids on the Wapsipinicon river.  Fact: plastering someone with wet leaves in an effective sun-blocking technique.

What have YOU been up to?  I know that I haven't been reading and commenting as much as I normally do, but I promise I try to keep up with all my friends and fellow bloggers. If you've done something of note recently, please add it to the comments.  And by "of note," I of course mean shenanigans.

C out. Tweet

Entry 148: My (cats!) Serious, Non-ADD (cats!) Side. (cats!) And, You Know, (cats) Keeping It Real. (cats!)

It's not often that I approach this blog as a serious outlet for sharing everyday happenings in my life.  But, seeing as how so many things have changed in the last month, I felt it only fair to open up and bring the "real" parts of my life into sharper focus.  So let's start at the "now" and work back to the "then," shall we?

Lolz!  This sign is a block from my house!  Creepers, right?

I'm living in St. Louis now, in a nice house that has a sweet balcony off my bedroom where I can read, chain-smoke, and drink coffee.  I really like spending time out there!  I've been reading George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, which is really good.  If you like nerd fantasy, it's the way to go.  And yes, it's the one that they have based the new HBO series Game of Thrones on. 

Look at this elephant painting I found!  Hilarious!  He looks so annoyed!

I'm in my third week of law school here at Washington University.  It's going well, but I think this first year is going to be a bit more work than I expected!

My friend's daughter got her hair highlighted- looks cool, huh? 

Adjusting to a new situation can be difficult, right?  Luckily I had the support of family and friends who all helped make my transition a smooth one.  Special thanks to mommasauros for helping get my house ready to sell, and to LJ for helping me set up my new house.  Couldn't have done it without you!

So I'm still trying to sell a few things from my house. Anyone need a trombone?

Here's a kind of funny story... when I got into St. Louis it was late -like, 3am- and I was exhausted.  I only wanted to sleep but I didn't want to leave my TV in the Uhaul all night so I brought it into the house, quietly.  Except my new neighbor woke up and offered to move his van if I need him to.  Oh, and he was shirtless, long-haired, possibly drunk, and his name is Wildcat.  No, that's his name.  And his elderly mother lives with him and drinks Beast Lite all day... her name?  Mama Wildcat. 

Or an organ?  It's in perfect playing condition!

One nice thing about a new school and a new city is meeting new people.  So far I've liked the other first year law students I've met- though they're all a bit younger than I was expecting.  A great majority are right out of undergrad (or close enough) and are only 22-23.  There's a few oldies like myself, but still.  That's kind of different! 

My friend (Turtlegirl) daughter again!  Dance!

Classes?  They've been really interesting so far.  All first year students take the same courses, so the classes are usually large- around 90 people.  The professors like to call randomly on students and stick with them for questions, so it's best to do the reading and be prepared.

Sorry- that last one was blurry.  This one's better.

I'd be lying if I said I haven't already had some drunken shenanigans occur.  I know you'd expect nothing less from me, and I haven't disappointed.  The odd thing is, the bars here are all different- some are open until 130, others 3am.  Some allow smoking in the bar, some don't.  Some are owned by quadriplegics that only bought one prosthetic limb so they can smoke camels all day, some aren't. 

Mini-Turtlegirl on her first day of school in a new town.  Precious!

While things have been good overall, there have still been a few rough patches.  I haven't slept quite as well as I normally do, which is strange because usually nothing interrupts my sleeping.  I've also inexplicably started losing weight, which for me isn't a good thing.  Some of you may know my "possible tapeworm" story from early undergrad, but I'm always suspicious of unexplained weight loss.  Hopefully it levels off.

You call this art? I call this barely-hidden penis porn.  Nice try, Dali.

Oh, right.  Some of you may wonder how I've fared so far in convincing Cardinal fans that they're headed to the dark side and to be Cub fans... well, as you'd expect, they haven't been very receptive.  For my first week here I was pretty sure my name was "...fuck off." 

 No seriously- this is the cutest pic ever, right?  Tiny girl in a big coat!!

And how's Ella?  She's doing well.  I think she likes the new house- though my roommate has a (cross-eyed) cat "Gnarls" and Ella is trying to establish her dominance.  I'm sure they'll be friends in no time.

Aww... look who's all tuckered out!

Okay, that's probably all you need to know for now.  Sorry about the break in blogging- it took me a while to get my shit set up, get settled, and get some free time.  Hopefully I'll be back to my semi-regular blogging schedule from now on!  As a sneak preview of my next blog idea, I'll ask this question: what does your voicemail greeting say about you? 

See you soon!

Thanks to great friends for being... great friends! 

Caleb "What?  What's weird about this post?  I don't get it." Shreves

PS Thanks to TurtleGirl for all the help editing these pictures!  You were right- there was something missing before! Tweet

Entry 147: Lazy? Shit No! I've Been Busy Learning Stuff. And Things.

Hey there, patient readers. 

First off, I realize that I've been postless (What? Postless isn't a word?  I HATE you, red-squiggly-underline-thing!) for some time now, and I want to assure you that it's not because of some artistic choice, or me trying to be like all the cool bloggers, or that I'm a lazy shit that found new distractions and abandoned you for videos of laughing babies.  Au contraire!  What happened is that very little happened in the last few weeks other than me getting ready to move to St. Louis.

Yeah, sure, there have been several slightly-amusing things that have happened, but you don't think I would just loosely tie all those things together in some post of poorly-hid random musings, do you?  Of course not.

So as I get ready to move to St. Louis this weekend, I've been thinking of what I've learned recently.  The life lessons and hard-won wisdom of my recent life.  Without further ado (shutup, Sharla- I'll type as much as I want) I present to you...


Caleb's Life Lessons from approximately some time ago until now.


Lesson #1.  Constant Complaining is a viable way to get what you want. 

I have been bitching non stop about you-know-what at work.  Recently, the vendors-that-be decided to finally stock the vending machine (dick) with blue Doritos.  Rejoice!   The next day, they took the vending machine out of the building.  Mother. Fuckers.  As to lesson #1?

Apparently someone realized the correct way to get me to stop bitching about not having Blue Doritos.  Touche, Reebs.


Lesson #2.  Spend time with your friends while you can. 

Unicorn Horns make the best disguises

It's tough when you leave a group of friends.   You get busy trying to prepare for a big move, and sometimes you think you can cram in a bunch of hang-out time and stock it away, like salt pork for a long winter.  You can't though.  Take the chances you get to visit your friends while you can, because you know they're a pack of lazy shits who will forget about you as soon as you leave and certainly aren't going to take the trouble to come visit you.  

And since you're going to have to do a bunch of boozin' in your new city to make new friends, it's a good idea to play the "you know I'm going away, right?" card to get your friends to pay your bar tab.  Save some money. 


Lesson #3. People will ask you dumb questions about your move, so respond accordingly with dumb answers.

*these are all actual questions I've been asked recently.  Often by several people, or the same person several times

Are you going to live in a house?

No.  They actually don't have houses in St. Louis, so I'm probably going to rent an official Washington University Conestoga Wagon.  That way I can use it to sleep in and procure sundries from the big city.

Doesn't it take 7 years of school?

Yes, but only if you opt for the Lawyer/Dentist/PhD 3-for-1 degree special.  I think that's what I'm going to do, since they're having a half-off degree sale through August.  

A 3 bedroom house? Are you going to have roommates?

What? And give up my arcade room and Guitar Hero workshop?  Pshaw!  As if!  How can I be expected to study if I don't have ways to blow off some steam?

Are you going to take a truck to move your stuff?

Nope.  I sold my +3 Longsword (+7 vs. Orcs) to the local arms merchant for 1800 gold pieces and bought a bag of holding (encumbrance .7) that should hold everything and fit in my car.  Suck it, Uhaul!


Lesson #4.  All those hours of playing video games DO pay off, mom!

In July my neighborhood bar brought in an old arcade machine that has awesome games like Dig Dug, Galaga, and Frogger.  They thought it would be fun to have a contest on Frogger where the high score for the month wins a pizza party with lots of beer.  So at the beginning of the month I dropped .50 cents, used 1 frog, and set a high score that was pretty beatable.

For a gamer.  I think, though, that I'm the only gamer in town.  Because nobody got close for most of the month, though the bartender Missy tried just about every day she was there.  I was worried that my tease-and-destroy plan was going to fail, but 2 days before the contest was up I was rewarded with this:

11,800 points?  Impressive! Nice work, Missy!

Boy was she proud.  No less than 3 people texted me within the hour to gloat over the fact that my high score was finally beaten and there would be no free beer in my future.  So I rolled in the night of the 31st with .50 cents and destroyed Missy's glory. 

Lolz!  I was still on the first frog and just kamikazed the other 2.  For spite.

Ah, sweet victory.  And yes, my beer and pizza were delicious.


Lesson #5.  Skydiving is awesome and life really helps you hassle people sometimes. 

Last year I went skydiving with Krust.  Her OCD required her to look up pictures of all the tandem instructors that might have to be strapped to her and make sure none of them were "too gross."  She was fine with all of them except one guy, Billy Bob.  She said that if she was matched with him that she would go back to the car, stab her eye out, and drive home to take a week long shower just to get rid of the thought of jumping with him. 

I went jumping again last week, dragging Kimmie with me because I got her to drunkenly agree last year to go if I went again.  She thought I would forget, and I didn't.  So in addition to the joy of watching Kimmie fall out of a plane, I got this: 

Lesson #6.  Never trust a gay instructor in a cooking class. 

Seriously- how do you even cut this into slices? 

Caleb "extra meat" Shreves


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Entry 146: Man VS. Nature, But Man Gets To Use Starting Fluid

I think that the spiders of my house are abusing my live-and-let-live policy.  I've felt recently that the number of random spider sightings at the Caleb estate has gone up, and this culminated (or so I thought) last month when I saw the biggest spider yet in my basement while doing laundry.  It was ::pauses, thinks of a way to not make this dirty:: um, it was thick, black, and hairy.  (Shit!)  Anyway.  I reacted like any normal adult male and shrieked while rushing to smash it with a half-used bottle of detergent.  The battle was over before it even began.

I told a few people about this spider, but I didn't tell LJ because I still had hopes that I could one day convince her to venture into my basement and do some laundry.  I know, I'm an optimist.  She's already scared of... something in the basement so I figured that telling her about a silver-dollar sized spider wouldn't help my case.

Literally- that's exactly what she said.

Last night I was heading out my front door to haz a smig* and I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks.   Let me try and re-create it for you.

Damn I'm good.

If you slowed time to a standstill, you could have identified four separate thoughts in my head.

1. That's strange.
2. Those look like insect legs.
3. More specifically, spider legs.
4. Wow- if those 2 legs are that big, then the spider must be
5. HOLY PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY THAT'S THE BIGGEST SPIDER EVER AND HE'S ALMOST IN MY HOUSE!!!

Okay, 5.

I collected myself for LJ's sake, took stock of the monster (holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, stay calm, holy shit), then assessed the situation.  I had to show somebody this monster, but if LJ was terrified of spiders and saw this thing then she might just run off in her nightgown, get in her car, and never step foot in my house again.  I decided to play it cool.

I think my "cool" looks more like tango dancing.  But what's the difference, really?

Me: "Hey there, LJ.  Question.  If you were to rank, say, bugs and animals and stuff on a freak-you-out scale, where would you put things?  Like, for instance-"

LJ: (slightly alarmed) "Did you see a snake?  Was there a snake?  Did you see a snake outside?"

Me: "No, no... but that's good.  So you'd put snakes at the top of the list?"

LJ: "I don't like anything."

Me: "Okay... but snakes are ahead of say... spiders?  Or bees?"

LJ: "There's a spider out there, isn't there."

Me: "Well there might... okay. Yeah.  It's fucking huge.  You have to come see it."

The die was cast.  We remained remarkably calm as we put on shoes and then side-stepped quickly through the doorway to get outside and take a look at the monster.  Oh, and while distracted, guess who decided to escape?  Yup- Worms.   Ungrateful cat.

It's hard to zoom in with an iPhone, but I tried to give a sense of perspective by using a lit cigarette.  Check it out.

Okay, that wasn't working.  For one, I was afraid of getting much closer to what I was sure was a wolf spider (they can jump).  PS THEY FUCKING JUMP.  So yeah, getting much closer wasn't an option.  But look at this picture- he barely looks as big as the doorknob.  In fact, he was bigger.  I had to take another picture.

Here's whats crazy.  I had to use my iPhone as a flashlight to see the thing.  But when I took a picture, I had to turn off the light in order to use the camera.  Leaving a brief period where I was IN THE DARK NEXT TO A MONSTER.  But I did this, for you.

That's a little better.

It was battle time.  The spider was endowed with fangs, venom, and agility, so I evened the score by scouring my house for the most dangerous chemicals I could find.

I passed up on Pledge (too lemon-y), decided against a carpet cleaner, and figured throwing dishwasher detergent cubes at it was going to be ineffective at best.  Unless I could actually get it into the dishwasher, in which case it would obviously be the best weapon.

So I went for a concentrated cleaning agent (like, you're supposed to dilute it or something dumb) and a bottle of starting fluid.  A fair match, I'd say.

As I sprayed it with Simply Green (turns out it was pet-safe and biodegradable- despite LJ's claims otherwise) it started jumping and running towards me, it's little fangs up in the air.  I grudgingly gave ground and added a good dose of starting fluid to mix with the cleaner.  It was trying to come at me, but was getting weighed down by all the shit I was spraying.  Finally, we reached a standstill.

I backed up, slowly, not wanting to lose sight of it, and searched for something to smash it with.  I found the discarded end of an old 10 pound dumbbell and held it several feet over Spiderzilla.  Then I dropped it.  Direct hit!  I picked it up and dropped it over and over again, until the spider was naught but a pile of legs and goo (in a puddle of starting fluid and simply green cleaner).  I wiped the sweat off my face and looked up to where I expected to see LJ, swooning over my bravery. 

Instead, I found her updating Facebook.  Seriously, Mark Zuckerberg- what have you done to us?

Caleb "1, spider: 0" Shreves

*"smig" is a new word for cigarette, coined by my brother Arby Tweet

Entry 145: The Five Minute Game. Oh, And Porn.

Yo-skis,

I decided to play a game today.  I get five minutes to pick popular topics and write something.  Yes, this is a coffee-fueled idea, and no- I *don't* want any goddamn sugar in my coffee.  Gross.

Setting the timer now... Go.

1. Casey Anthony trial

Did you know that some porn company had an offer on the table (heh... on the table) for her to do some adult videos?  True story.  They took the offer back after they assessed the extremely negative emotional reaction from people.  Porn standards- I know, right?  There goes my new drinking game idea, "See how long you can keep your boner while looking into Casey Anthony's crazy eyes."

2. Democrats and Republicans fighting over the debt ceiling.

Something about the whole thing reminds me of 2 straight guys getting tricked into doing gay porn.  They both show up on set, wieners in hand, look at each other and say "where's the bitches?"  Newsflash: there's no bitches.

3. Tosh.0.

Seriously- have you seen this fucking show?  It's awesome-tastic-mazing-ceptional.   That's a 4-combo adjective, which is the equivalent of a "fatality" in Mortal Kombat.  Tosh recently gave me the quote of the month: "Anal sex is like spinach: if you're forced to have it as a child, you won't like it as an adult."

4. Soccer, some hockey, the French, hippies, tofu, sharing.

Gay.

Ding!  That's 5 already?  And yes- I type that quickly.

I feel cheated though... how about I take another 5, surf around, and see what sort of internet shenanigans I can come up with?  Go.

Suck it, Krust!

I hope cubs.com appreciates my candid feedback

The Johann recently bought a new SUV that smells like a steak and seats 35.   I call it "Canyonero" but he doesn't get the reference.  I used my last 2 minutes to finally find the video for him and share it.  You all know the reference, right?

And done.  Not bad for 10 minutes, right?

Bonus!  1 minute to list what else one could do with 10 minutes.  Go.

1. Have sex and then nap for almost 10 minutes.
2. Figure out that the Cubs are going to be losers this year
3. Get a degree from a community college
4. Wait for a beer at The Lucky Frog (Suck it, T!)
5. Get bored watching golf and play a 9 minute drinking game
6. damn!  out of time

Anyway folks.  This is a fun game- I suggest you try it.

Later!

Caleb "can I buy you a fish sandwich?" Shreves

PS technically I had an additional 15 seconds on the internet-shenanigan portion, so I've decided that I get a bonus.  Behold, the OCD-like qualities of my future roommate.  If she only knew how much beer of hers I'm going to drink...

I think she's getting serious about finding a place to live.  Oh, and yes, the bottom one is in regards to me selling The Nighthawk.  Blog Readers get a .01% discount!

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